New NALC Contract Excludes Excessing Into Their Craft

The 2016-2019 NALC-USPS National Agreement provides, “Effective November 24, 2018, all Grade 1 letter carriers will be upgraded to Grade 2.” CC-2 is equivalent to Level 7. Because involuntary reassignments must be made to the same or lower level, few employees in the APWU bargaining units will be excessed into city carrier duty assignments in the future. Those landing spots will be gone!

The NALC eliminated most voluntary transfers into their craft in 2013. The APWU reciprocated in 2014. The withholding of residual city carrier duty assignments under Article 12 and the influx of clerks has been a persistent irritant to the NALC for years. It hurt and demoralized their CCA members. Soon, that will be history.

The MOU Minimizing Excessing that limits involuntary reassignments to no more than 50 miles expires on September 20, 2018. Unless it is extended, we could see an explosion of excessing beyond reasonable commuting distances. The APWU should consider negotiating better relocation allowances. They used to be the same for bargaining employees as nonbargaining employees many years ago.